A public company is a company whose ownership is made up of shares which can be purchased and held by the general public.
Typically, public companies are listed on stock exchanges. However, there are public companies which are not listed on exchanges but sell shares to the general public directly.
Public companies are typically corporations, although not all corporations offer their stock for sale to the general public.
In Switzerland, public companies fall under the Aktiengesellschaft (AG) or Société anonyme (S.A.) category. Here too, not every company in the AG/S.A. category is a public company.
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